Trump Approval Falls to 33 Percent, a Record Low in Post-ABC Poll, Weeks Before Midterms

President Donald Trump's approval rating has fallen to 33 percent in a Washington Post, ABC News and Ipsos poll released on Sunday, October 18, the lowest mark he has recorded in that polling, USA Today reported.

The survey found that 66 percent of United States adults disapprove of the job Trump is doing. Fifty two percent said they strongly disapprove. Approval stood at 37 percent in the same polling in April and in July, so the new number is a drop of four points since the summer.

The result landed a little more than two weeks before the midterm elections on Tuesday, November 3, when voters will decide which party controls Congress. It also matched the direction of a Fox News poll released on October 14, which marked Trump's lowest approval rating in that network's polling during either of his terms.

Prices are driving the numbers

The economy sat at the center of the result. Around 3 in 4 Americans disapproved of Trump's handling of the cost of living and inflation, USA Today reported. The economy and the Iran war, and what both have done to household finances, were at the top of voters' minds, and many voters blamed Trump and Republicans in recent polls.

For the first time in more than a decade, voters said Democrats were more trustworthy than Republicans on the economy, by 40 percent to 33 percent. That is a change in an area where Republicans have usually held the edge.

Seventy two percent of Americans said the country is heading in the wrong direction. That figure has risen five points since April.

Democrats lead the House race, and voters want a check

Democrats held an eight point lead over Republicans among registered voters in the race for control of the House. The lead was three points in the Post's July poll, so it has grown by five points in three months. Political Wire, reporting the same poll, put the generic congressional ballot among likely voters at 52 percent for Democrats and 44 percent for Republicans.

Registered voters also said, by 58 percent to 39 percent, that they would rather have Democrats in control of Congress to act as a check on the White House. That margin has roughly doubled in a year.

History is against the party in power in a midterm year. In the 2018 midterms, during Trump's first term, Democrats gained 41 House seats and picked up two Senate seats, in Arizona and Nevada. This year the Senate map is competitive in Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Ohio and Texas, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

How the poll was done

The poll was conducted from October 9 to October 13 among 2,545 United States adults. The margin of error is plus or minus 2 percentage points for all adults, and plus or minus 2.2 percentage points for registered voters and likely voters.

A single poll is a snapshot, not a result. But this snapshot shows a president at his weakest point in this survey series, an opposition party ahead on the economy for the first time in more than ten years, and a House race that has moved toward Democrats since July, with just over two weeks of campaigning left.